Re: $HOME default on w32

From:

Lennart Borgman

Subject:

Re: $HOME default on w32

Date:

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 19:37:51 +0200

Jay, if I got you right there is technically no difference between
CSIDL_PERSONAL and CSIDL_APPDATA (except for the location). It is more on
the conceptual side - including the visibility of the folders.
CSIDL_PERSONAL points to "My Documents" which is more visible.
In my opinion "My Documents" is more like $HOME. As a programmer I was quite
a bit frustrated in the beginning before I found "Application Data". So the
choice might depend on the audience.
Actually I feel the division between "My Documents" and "Application Data"
is far better than $HOME that points to both. But of course we can not do
much about that now.
- Lennart
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jay Finger" <address@hidden>
: CSIDL_PERSONAL (i.e. My Documents) is per-user. By default this is equal
to
: "$USERPROFILE\My Documents". On networked systems My Documents is often
: redirected to a user-specific location on the network so that users can
have
: one directory of data. The system also does sync'ing so that when offline
: (e.g. the laptop is not on the network) the data is still available.
...
: So I think CSIDL_PERSONAL would meet both 1 and 2.
:
: Just to confuse the issue a little:-) there are two others that you might
: want to consider, but I don't think they're correct for $HOME.
: CSIDL_APPDATA is application specific data (e.g. where an app might save
: it's own metadata that users aren't entirely aware of). For example,
: Microsoft Outlook saves some user settings in
: CSIDL_APPDATA\Microsoft\Outlook\... This directory is by default at
: "$USERPROFILE\Application Data", but may roam with the user from machine
to
: machine. In other words, it is user specific, but might not be machine
: specific.